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But on a field of battle, when every life totters in the balance, where childhoods, begun long ago, and youthful days suddenly past, have all, impossibly, insanely, led to this day. This fight. This wretched span of killing and dying. Was this the cause your father and mother dreamed of, for you? Was this the reason for raising you, protecting you, feeding you, loving you? What, in the name of all the gods above and below, are you doing here?
Necessity, when spoken of in the forum of human endeavour, is more often a lie than not.
This battle could still be prevented. Peace could be carved out of this misshapen mess, and to yearn for that was not a failing of courage. It was, in truth, a desperate grasp for the last vestiges of wisdom.
Sevegg’s mouth was suddenly dry, and she felt her insides contract, as if every organ fought to retreat, to flee, only to be trapped by the cage of her bones.
Gods help a kingdom ruled by a poet! What? No, I do not know King Tehol the Only. Will you interrupt me again?
So. I sense you manning still the ramparts of your admiration for the Son of Darkness. Will I never scour that romance from your vision? Must I beat you about the head with his flaws, his errors in judgement, his obstinacy?
IT ME
‘One man, then,’ she said. ‘A most honourable man, whom I love as a son.’ She sighed, even as tears stung her eyes. ‘He is all but turned away already, and she from him. Poor Anomander.’
‘Intentions precede our deeds, and then are left lying in the wake of those deeds.
I am not the voice of posterity, Anomander Rake. Nor are you.’ ‘Rake?’ ‘Purake is an Azathanai word,’ Brood said. ‘You did not know? It was an honorific granted to your family, to your father in his youth.’
‘Pur Rakess Calas ne A’nom. Roughly, Strength in Standing Still.’
‘I feel no such thing.’ ‘No one who is strong does.’
Tradition was not a thing to be worshipped. Tradition was the last bastion of fools.
Everyone was broken inside. It was just that some were more broken than others, and when they were broken bad inside, it was all they could do to keep the outside looking normal. That took all the work and that’s what living was – work. He had years of practice.
Glyph moved to settle into a crouch beside him. ‘I name you the Watch. In our old language: Yedan.’
‘When the fires take the sea,’ Narad said, seeing once again that terrible shoreline where he had walked. The hand on his shoulder held him with a savagely tight grip now, sending pain lancing through him. ‘Upon the shoreline,’ he said. ‘There, when you ask it of us, we will stand.’ ‘In whose name?’ Caladan asked. ‘Hers,’ Narad replied.
‘Glyph?’ ‘Yedan Narad?’ ‘Your old language. Have you a name for a shoreline?’ The hunter nodded. ‘Yes.’ ‘What is it, then?’ ‘Emurlahn.’ Yes. There.
You are curious, I gather, and indeed led into bemusement, by my fashioning this tale. In your mind, I am sure, the place of beginnings lacked the formality of territories, shorelines, the hinting of a discrete and singular world, upon which myths and legendary entities abound. Dare I suggest that what clashes is within you, not me? The deep past is a realm of the imagination, but one made hazy and indistinct with mystery.
‘I found a world in argument with itself. The delusion of intelligence, K’rul, is a sordid thing.’ ‘And this towering form you now present to me? Do you wear the guise of these … creatures?’ ‘One of their breeds, yes. I played the assassin,’ Skillen replied. ‘Subtlety is lost on them. They raise a civilization of function, mechanical purpose. They are driven to explain all, and so understand nothing.
There was sorcery in the spilled blood of Azathanai. K’rul had very nearly bled himself dry.
‘The courage of husbands is directly proportionate to the proximity of the wife.’
The Azathanai are most ancient folk, Ravast. Mysterious, too. Like an uncle who dresses strangely and has nothing to say, but offers you a knowing wink every now and then.
‘The Builders, I would think. They have, they tell me, reduced entire worlds to rubble, leaving them to float in clouds that ever circle the sun – a sun not our own, one must assume.’
Their pace was slow, as K’rul seemed to have little strength. If he still dripped blood from his sacrifice, the crimson drops did not touch these dusty silts. No, they bled elsewhere.
‘Errastas seeks to impose a kind of order upon my gifts, and make of chance a secret assassin to hope and desire. Droe, there are gates, now. They await guardians.
‘You said Starvald Demelain has opened twice. How many dragons are we talking about?’ ‘Oh, the first time yielded but one dragon, and it is already dead.’ ‘Dead?’ ‘Well, as dead as dragons are able to get.’ ‘Who killed it?’ ‘I’m not sure. Its carcass rots on the shore of the Vitr.’ ‘Which dragon? Name it!’ ‘Korabas Otar Tantaral.’ ‘Korabas!’ ‘But don’t worry,’ said K’rul. ‘I’m not done with her just yet.’
‘The great tome that is the Folly goes poorly, I assume. Even reasons for suicide can grow long in the tusk at times, one concludes. Meanwhile, death waits on the Throne of Ice.’
desk. ‘I do not know whom you mean, Arathan. When you find a true friend, you will know it. There may be challenges in that relationship, but for all that, it thrives on mutual respect, and honours the virtues exchanged. You need no fists to make a space for yourself. No one clings to your shadow – even as they grow to despise that shadow, and the one who so boldly casts it. Your feelings are not objects to be manipulated, with cold intent or emotion’s blind, unreasoning heat. You are heard. You are heeded. You are challenged, and so made better. This is not a tie that exhausts, nor one that
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‘Oh, enough.’ Korya spread out her arms. See this vessel, old one! Come to me, as a crab finds its perfect shell! I can hold you. I am your Mahybe, your home. Refuge. Lair. Whatever.
‘Send her home,’ said Burrugast. ‘You never did well with pets, Haut. Especially other people’s pets.’ Haut scowled. ‘I warned Raest. Besides, in the end, he could not find dishonour in the tomb I raised for that idiot cat.
‘As for the land,’ Varandas noted, ‘I see an ocean of crimson mud, banners tottering, tilting, sinking. None to die, no room for the living – why, this future life you describe, Seregahl, makes of death a heaven. Who, in that time, will rise up to pronounce a war upon life?’
Death will have to chase me down. Hunt me across, I don’t know, centuries. And even then, I vow to leave it … dissatisfied.
‘The young have little in their satchel, and so would make of each possession something vast. Bulky, heavy, awkward. They end up with a crowded bag indeed – or so they believe, when we look upon it and see little more than a slim purse dangling jauntily from your belt.’
Winter’s isolation belonged as much to the mind as to the world outside it.
It was astonishing, Serap reminded herself, just how much the silence had to say, when given the chance.
There were sensations in the world, in the life’s span, that could only be treasured, and surely one was the anticipation of blessed warmth, after days of chill and damp.
‘Shall we ask Biskin?’ Prazek sighed. ‘Alas, Biskin tried to swallow my horse’s left forehoof. What remains of his brain bears the imprint of a horseshoe, decidedly unlucky.’
We didn’t ask to be like this, did we? They never gave us a chance to be innocent.
Children were visible shouts of life, a crowing delight in possibility and promise.
flung a burning brand into the haystack. Andii and now Liosan – we are a people divided, and I cannot but believe that was your Azathanai’s intent, to see us weakened. And I must wonder, why?’
‘But understand my offer before you reject it. When you find those rapists and murderers, they will be in a cohort, in Urusander’s Legion. There may well be a thousand soldiers between you and them. I will clear your path, Wreneck.’
And with the Azathanai, who even if he’s not good for anything else can at least make a fine bowl of broth.
Why, I wonder, does history seem to be little more than a list of belligerent stupidities?
A soul at ease with itself is surely healthier than one stressed with worry and dread. What of the overly judgemental among us? What ill humours are secreted internally by embittered comparisons of moral standing? What poisons attend to self-righteousness?’
why, I see a future made most toxic, born on the day society sets the value of wealth above that of lives.’ Sandalath started. ‘Surely, surgeon, that could never come to pass!’ ‘Cruel judgement – the poor deserve to be poor, and in the failing of their spirit, why, illness is only just.
‘There is nothing more savage than a savage civilization. No single man or woman, no band or tribe, could ever aspire to what a civilization is capable of committing, not just upon its enemies, but upon its own people.’
‘Faith is the state of not knowing, and yet, by choice, knowing. Every construct of reason propping it up plays a game, but the rules of that game are left, quite deliberately, incomplete. Thus, the argument has, to be crass, holes. But those “holes” are not synonymous with failure. If anything, they become a source of strength, as they are the places of knowing what cannot be known. To know what cannot be known is to find yourself in an unassailable position, proof against all argument, all dissuasion.’
But nothing of the past held any relevance, not any more. It had become a realm made perfect by virtue of being unreachable. For all that, its lure remained, as seductive as ever. Entire revolutions, he knew, could be unleashed in the name of some impossible, mostly imagined past. A creation fashioned as much from ignorance as from knowledge.
When you brought down the hands of a god, I drenched them in mortal blood.
Lithe child, where have you gone? Do you hide there still, beneath layers of adulthood?
‘I am told that Hunn Raal proclaims himself an archmage. He has invented for himself the title of Mortal Sword to Light.
